Top Wastes that are a NO-GO on Your Garbage Disposal Units

Garbage disposal units are meant to be used for disposing food wastes. Strangely, a lot of us still consider it as a formidable device that is capable of breaking down even non-food materials.

How is that?

Non-food items are not meant for our disposal units and dumping them down the sink will have negative, even harmful effects to our sewage systems and eventually to the environment as a whole.

Below are some common non-food wastes that are absolutely a NO-GO for our disposal units.

Take a quick look at them and see if you’re guilty of throwing them down the sink!

Paint/hazardous chemicals

It sounds convenient to simply just pour down that unused paint down the sink, thinking that it will somehow end up to treatment plants where it gets cleaned or disposed for good.

What we don’t know however, is while things you flush down your sink can indeed go to treatment plants, a lot of hazardous chemicals such as that present on paints have their own ways in ending up to our natural bodies of water like lakes, rivers and seas.

These types of chemicals are the very reason behind some issues of fish killings and water contamination.

Worse, these chemicals can also seep through land and can affect major rice fields and even sewage systems supplying water to the different households.

Grease/fats/oils

Most of the fried foods we eat at home contain grease, fats and oils and wouldn’t it be easier to just flush them down every time we wash those frying pans?

The bad thing about these things is that, they have the tendency to solidify. And when they do, they can clog our pipes and eventually our drainage system.

A lot of cases involving clogged water pipes and even jammed garbage disposal unit is caused by grease and fats that has solidified.

Cotton balls/paper towels

Aren’t paper towels and cotton balls supposed to be flushable?

Yes. They are flushable as they claim to be. But there are some cotton balls and paper towels that are made to withstand the abuse they get once water starts to break them down.

Just like grease and oil, these materials also have the potential to clog pipes, resulting to water overflow on your sink. Worse, you can’t just remove them by warm water treatment and expect them to break down.

In most cases, you’ll have to disassemble your pipe to get rid of the clog.

Pills/medications

It’s easy to decide to flush down those leftover medicines in the sink. After all, they aren’t as big as those paper towels to cause clogs and jams. So it’s totally fine, right?

Wrong.

Just like paints, pills also contain chemicals which can seep through our drainage system and even on our waterways. In fact, studies have revealed that medications like antibiotics and ibuprofen can be found in drinking water supplies through the US.